Modern Wisdom

The Genetics of Evil: Are People Born Bad? - Dr Kathryn Paige Harden - #1066

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Mar 2, 2026
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Kathryn Paige Harden
Dr Kathryn Paige Harden, psychologist and behavioral geneticist at UT Austin, explores how biology, environment, and experience combine to shape antisocial behavior. She discusses a 4‑million‑person genetics study, evolutionary roots of aggression and risk‑taking, heritability of conduct problems, punishment and mitigation in courts, epigenetics and cash‑transfer experiments, embryo selection ethics, and modern mating signals.
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Four Million Person Risk Taking Gene Study

  • Kathryn Paige Harden found a genetic liability for risk-taking by analysing DNA from 4 million people linked to seven behaviors like early sex, ADHD symptoms, smoking, and problematic alcohol use.
  • The study looked for genes common across those behaviors to capture a general predisposition to disinhibition and reward-seeking across the lifespan.

From Diner Waitress To Mouse Brain Surgery

  • Harden began researching wrongdoing after working on opioid addiction in mice, doing delicate brain procedures to manipulate resilience to withdrawal.
  • Raised evangelical, she saw a paradigm shift from moralizing addiction to modeling and altering it biologically in animals.

Human Self Domestication And The Value Of Risk

  • Humans show self-domestication: compared to primates we evolved reduced aggression, greater cooperation, and physiological changes that favor social regulation.
  • Yet selection also preserves risk-taking because entrepreneurs and innovators benefit from deviance, so variation remains adaptive.
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